Posted 2 years ago on Dec. 28, 2012, 2:57 p.m. EST by jph
(2652)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

When the only way you or I can pay the interest on the loans we have made, is to borrow more, we are called bankrupt! How is it different for the govt.?

This is a simple shell game where the debt is pushed onto our children and children's children, so the banksters can continue to take the endless interest, without ever doing anything for it.
The current monetary (money) system is a pyramid-scam! The 1% continue their reign-of-terror through this mechanism of endless interest on endless debt. It does not need to be this way., in fact it can not longer continue!

The only true solution is to brake the cycle, and refuse to pay the unnecessary usury (or excessive interest) on the vast government debt. A debt created by the 1% (through their corrupt politicians, and mindless war spending as one example), for the benefit of the 1%,. at the expense of all the rest of humanity, and the continued plundering,. to extinction, of the world we live in,. .

This is not a left / right or R vs D issue, this is an issue of the basic money-system being broken beyond repair, and the time to change it having come!

If you buy the media's pushed idea; that left/right bickering is the problem, then you must be HIGH!
Don't smoke the Fiscal Spliff!

Once again, this is a clear case of the 1% taking WAY MORE than their share, and asking the whole world to suffer for them,. . are you still willing to fall for that one?

Reflect that "Public Banking may be a radical solution, but it is also an obvious one. This is not rocket science. By developing a public banking system, governments can keep the interest and reinvest it locally ... that means public savings of 35% to 40%. Costs can be reduced across the board ; taxes can be cut or services can be increased ; market stability can be created for governments, borrowers and consumers. Banking and credit can become public utilities, feeding the economy rather than feeding off it."

Exactly! I was just thinking this. Not for profit banking, not for profit healthcare, transportation, education, etc. This is a no brainer. An economic system that works for the people is what we need.

"The politicians in the USA are compromised and refuse to see the reality. It is the task of the progressive forces to keep the discussions on the JP Morgan losses on the table in order to educate the people on the nature of the depression. The major media houses such as the New York Times are attempting to manage this story saying that this $3-4 billion loss is a drop in the bucket. From the financial papers there is the buzz that one’s loss is another person’s gain. This is cold comfort to the poor all over the world who are suffering in the midst of this depression. In 2008 the government socialized the losses while the profits were privatized. The bailout was one of the biggest transfers of wealth from the poor of the world to the rich. These bankers now need another bail out and the US government will have to increase the debt ceiling.

"For the moment the Occupy Wall Street Movement has made it impossible for the government to bail out the banks again. However, far from bailing out the bankers, speculators such as Corzine of MF Global and Jamie Dimon should be prosecuted. It is not enough to say that what JP Morgan was doing was inappropriate from a federally insured depository institution. It is time for the people to call for these banks to be taken over and the big bankers removed.

"It is now time for audacity and more audacity. Nationalization and political education at the moment is more important than the elections. Bankers like JP Morgan profit from war and these forces want another big war so that the capitalists can recover. The peace and justice forces must be more vigilant. The JP Morgan Chase debacle heightens the desperation of the top one per cent in the USA."

I copy the above articles because they speak harsh truths just as you do in your succinct comment above. Compounded Interest and the trade in this 'Debt and its Derivatives' is a Parasitic Extraction Exercise which is bleeding us dry, wherever we are. The articles don't actually touch on this core point but very clearly show the effects.

We need a 'Revolution of Everyday Life' and "an economic system which works for all the people" all of the time. This is not beyond the wit of mankind, as we really live in a world of actual abundance but alas 'Artificial Scarcity' is what is plied to us, so as to keep us anxious, divided and mind-managed.

We must do what we can and work and hope for better tomorrow towards a 'bw' for all ... because in all all sincerity - what's the option ?!

In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the economics of wealth and wage extinction. They talk about hunger wages, household income and the hedge funds reaping huge profits off this wealth and wage extinction. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Captain Paul Watson on a ship in the Southern Ocean in Antarctica fighting the economics of extinction as practised by the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary."

Worth watching. Thanks for the links, and, yes, you are right that we need a "Revolution of Everyday Life" and an economic system that works for all people. Amen. Yes. It is not beyond the wit of mankind. Well said, Shadz.

Matt Taibbi's work on exposing Wall Street's venality & criminality is second to none and something even Max Keiser and Stacey Herbert acknowledge wholeheartedly & MT has been on their show, something you and readers can probably search via accessing the 'KR' archives via your link.

People like Matt Taibbi and Max Keiser, Robert Reich, Stacey Mitchell, etc. are very important because they break down complex issues for the lay person. One of the reasons the banksters have gotten away with so much is because few people really understand what it is they were doing. Shedding a light on it is critical to reaching the masses. Solidarity, Shadz! And, keep up the good work.

On Public Banking, Ellen Brown is second to none and thanx for your excellent and revealing link. There is no doubt that OWS is seeding for a future "paradigm shift" and increasingly young people will see the vacuity of selfish materialism. 'Radical' is becoming chic again and 'engaged and educated' is cool too !!!

Moses put $1 in a savings account at 2% compound interest, what would it be worth today?

FV = PV(1+i)**t

That's a little beyond fourth grade math but freshman high school algebra should do it. Can you, aville, do it? How about the logarithmic solution to get the doubling time, 2PV?

Don't tax your brain. I'll plug and chug for you. Compounded annually for 3000 years that comes to: $6.32 x 10E25. Oh, scientific notation out of your ken? $63.2 trillion trillion. Of course world net worth is only in the 100s of trillions. Do you see a problem with compound interest or inheritance?

What business? Product? Name? Location? Contact information? I'd like to see something more substantial than words, which may be bullshit and usually are when someone speaks in generalities with little real information content.

All service is parasitic like usury. If it's useful it must be done on a non profit basis, to minimize the harm it does to the community. The human race will be better off without service scams and the frauds who perpetrate them.

If the people were fully awake and aware and willing to act - they would demand that the usury/interest that this country charges itself/The People be dismissed. All payments into the system should be to pay down the debt and used for needed projects that would strengthen the economy by getting people employed doing good and necessary work - people who would then be paying into the economy - WITH - their "living" wage's. Charging interest to the national debt is a scam.

To Hell with the debt that enslaves us to the rich! If they don't agree to surrender what they've stolen from our community, deport them to Galt's Island where they can live by their own hard work and ingenuity.

They'll not have our money and goods to capitalize their useless existence. No servants to wipe their dirty asses. No intercourse with the rest of the human race. No infrastructure built for them to use. Just an empty, natural chunk of land to try to live and forage upon. If they can make it on their own with no one to work for them then fine: I won't demand their elimination from the gene pool, as retribution for thousands of years of parasitization of the human race.

"The average debt for households earning $20,000 a year or less more than doubled to $26,000 between 2001 and 2010, according to the Urban Institute. The averages for households in slightly higher brackets grew by 50 to 90 percent in the same period."

The writing of definitive sets of regulations, while interesting, is not a viable solution. We need to effect and modify our current culture, as people do not just accept a "solution" handed down from on high, we need to participate in it's creation, in a real democratic process.

How is voter application of affidavits, voter support of local initiatives for local businesses, and grassroots formation of a credit union/mutual insurance/cooperative business community not participatory and democratic?

I have no desire to petition the current "system", to change itself. This has been PROVEN not to work at all. What I am interested in is empowering people, anyone who can see the truth of it, to make simple changes in their life, and therefor our larger culture, that will bring about the changes we need to survive and more forward together.

Representative government is a failure, and a source of our problems, it can not be reformed. It must be superseded by a more participator democracy, rising from the people.

You process of positing LONG "proposals" in tedious technical language instead of open discussion of your ideas is itself non-democratic. If you can not summarize your position, or your "plan", in a short easy to read sentence, then you will never be able to sell it to the people, and it will never be implemented. Making it an intellectual wank and little more.

Since petitioning the current system has nothing to do with what I've written, what's the purpose of mentioning such a thing?

So, your interest in empowering people excludes them forming a credit union, mutual insurance company, and cooperative employment service for lack of them being simple life changes? People are only supposed to make individual changes without coming together to make larger changes?

How does a more participatory democracy arise from the people to supercede a representative government?

Why claim there is no open discussion of my ideas when clearly I have openly discussed them with everyone who has chosen to respond to them?

"FreeDA; Taking Freedom Into Our Own Hands" is already a one sentence summary. One sentence slogans only get people's attention. They go no further than that when there's nothing more to them. If they did, "Make love, not war." would already be a success.

As for commandments, commandments can't be modified upon engaging in open discussion as the Free Democracy Amendments have been over the past year. Seeing them as commandments is much like the things read by people who read about burning shrubs...ever subject to personal interpretations.

However, simply characterizing it as being about reforming representative government is extremely selective since exercising democratic action in the 24 ballot initiative states, exercising democracy at the local level (FreeDA/MEI), and exercising democracy economically (FreeDA/CES), are likewise about the people taking freedom into their own hands.

I simply see an attempt to fix a system that does not want to be, and will not be, fixed! We need to walk away from the current corruption, and build new systems from the ground up,. (as much as possible) this is my opinion and I am entitled to it, thanks. Of course, you are entitled to yours, and I commend your actions to make change, I just see your choices as misguided,. again my opinion.

So, to focus on just FreeDA/CES, to walk away from the current corruption, and build new systems from the ground up, we have to walk away from building cooperative systems and build some sort of alternative to them? If cooperative systems are included in what you say we should walk away from, or just the types suggested in FreeDA/CES, I'm both perplexed and genuinely interested to know what these new systems would be.

What cooperative systems are you proposing? All I can glean from your posts/web site is that you have lists and lists of 'amendments' to systems that already exist, and are corrupted beyond possible repair.

Would you just summarize what you are proposing, clearly?

As it seems to be a bunch of mumbo-jumbo; lists of technical 'laws' and 'regulations', not presented in an intelligible way,. I see no way forward with a mess if new regulations that are not clear, concise, or able to be adopted by an hostile and indifferent political/banking system.

What I propose is simply making changes in our own lives, moving towards the ideas of Degrowth, Relocalization, and Permaculture, using systems like those presented by groups like the Slow Money movement. We can control what we do ourselves, personally,. much more readily than trying to get others to adopt new laws/regulations (that are not explained simply and clearly) that the current system will invariably reject.

Well, I simply don't know what to make of your response. I clearly referred to FreeDA/CES which is clearly presented at the post. Yet you quite selectively choose only to respond to anything except it, requesting me to summarize what has already been summarized. If, for whatever reason, you are simply choosing not to even read it or respond to it, I'll have to accept that and just be satisfied with the responses you gave to my second question.

Dude, I have read your post,. it is nonsensical double-speak and pointless self-referencing to programs and regulations that only exist in your own posts. I am coming to the conclusion that you post this stuff as NOISE and distraction as you are unwilling/able to simply summarize just what the hell you are on about,. Are you really attempting to derail legitimate debate and discussion?

I have seen others ask you to do this (summarize or explain your materials) and over and over, you refuse and are hostile to peoples analytically/reading skills,. as if the material you have posted is clear. IT IS NOT!

I have absolutely no interest in "new" representative government schema and convoluted voting systems. Thanks but no thanks.

The revolution begins when we make the changes in our own lives that shift energy from supporting the old ways, the old systems, the corrupted corporate/bankster hegemony, and embrace the life affirming, positive growth, of interconnected communities, living simply and within our means. Building up biological and energetic capital for future generations, instead of taring it down, as we do now, for the short-sighted greed of the few.

Realize that the monetary (money) system is a rigged pyramid scam,. and stop supporting it. Start exchanging with people locally, and on the net that realize this also, in new ways. There are many! Search ; "alternative systems of exchange", "non-debt based monetary system", or just "monetary system" for a start.

Search; permaculture, slowmoney, relocalize, degrowth, etc.

We can provide a great life for the entire population of the earth, as soon as we end the rule of the ultra-greedy 1% parasites, and begin to spread peace and not war.

“Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves.”
EUGENE VICTOR DEBS 1855-1926

It is less about how most people choose to spend their time, than it is about how the 1% have crafted a system, that endlessly skims wealth from everyone, for the benefit of this tinny 1% of do nothing parasitic users.

The 1% can only skim wealth with the people's collective consent. The few who choose to come together in crafting their own systems, be they cooperative businesses or mutual support systems, are a little less subject to the skimming.

This is in-built into the money., if you use money you are being stolen from. The govt' does everything it does without our consent. It just takes the taxes, gives them to the banksters, THEN borrows all money from the banksters for new spending,. it is a cycle and a feedback loop,. new interest is added each time you are taxed or the govt' spends any money, and you do not have to consent to it it just already is.

There are mutual support systems that, for the most part, don't use money or at least not the money printed by the fed. People in these systems, again, for the most part, do not consent to using the bankster's money. They remain subject to the overall system only because they are a minority dependent upon others within the overall system. Ultimately, tyrants cannot do anything without the collective majority consent of their victims, including the ones who choose to obtain employment from the tyrants as either soldiers or as low level government employees.

Once upon a time, a people had collectively refused the taxes of their government. Upon developing cooperative alternatives to the way things are now, they could do so again.

What me personally? How is that relevant? How do you wipe your ass? Is that relevant either?

The topic of debate is the current system of money (monetary system) that has an in-built skimming off of interest by the 1% for their own greed and aggrandizement vs any other system that does not systematically take from the many for the benefit of the 1% few.

We do have the ability to change the systems we live with. We create and perpetuate them every day, we can, and I suggest we must, choose to change what we support, and build new and better systems. Simple as that.

Well yes, and no. I do agree that we, (or our parents,. and those before them?) have sold out to the "american dream",. the idea of our kids doing better than we did, etc. (and pushed this myth on us) Only just like the idea that housing prices "always go up", and cheep oil "will never run dry",. this is a bit of a fiction ain't it.

Your comment reminds me of the Peter Gabriel song Big Time;
",.. And my heaven will be a big heaven,
And I will walk through the front door
Big Time, I'm on my way i'm making it, big time, Huh!
Big time, I've got to make it show yeah, big time
Big time, so much larger than life
Big time, I'm gonna watch it growing, big time
Big time, my car is getting bigger Big time, my house is getting bigger
Big time, my eyes are getting bigger
And my mouuuth
Big time, my dinner's getting bigger
Big time, and my bank account
Big time, look at my circumstance,.. "

Truth is that growth is limited on a finite planet, and our "economic theory" just ignores this fact, among many rather important facts that popular theory just ignores!

We do still have much of the physical things we will need; our stuff (clothes, household items), our homes and yards, and our public places, parks, community gardens, community centers etc. The banks can go down, and we still have access to most of what we need to live simply. Looking at Cuba when the soviet union was dissolved and support stopped to Cuba, is an interesting telling story,. the people there built giant gardens in the cities, whole stadiums where converted, and these now employ many farm workers,. while supplying much needed fresh produce to the cites,. we can sort this all out the exampls of how are all around us, if we are looking for them. Life abides!

A dim view you got their. There is SOME truth to your parables,. but just some. Many people own their homes outright, however they keep getting screwed anyway,. on the taxes, since the "representatives" seem to keep borrowing money, to pay for everything, since ALL the taxes collected goes directly to the banksters to pay the interest on the debt, for all the money that was borrowed to pay the interest on the debt,. <enter endless loop>

There are many ways to brake this loop,. and undermine it,. and disrupt it, and sidestep it,. and create new positive loops that feedback to the people!

No, I was referring the the human group,. as in humanity. You paint the lot with a brush only a few truly deserve.

Yes, it takes all kinds, some angry youths may behave as badly as you describe,. we where all young and knew everything once, ;) I have my doubts though, seems odd anyone would spit at you simply for addressing them? If true, shame on them,. assholes come in all shapes and sizes. I do support any disruption in the pipeline building,. not spiting at the innocent mind you, but anything goes towards the pipe itself!

In response to "LeoYo", in the sub-thread that bottomed out, (no more posts allowed);

"Prior to national ratification, the Free Democracy Amendments, collectively referred to as the FreeDA Liberty Bill, can be enacted at the state level in the 24 ballot initiative states where a Union Reserve Bank could be formed from the newly created state banks whose state appointed bank officials would serve as the Union Board of Governors with all the responsibilities of the Open Market Committee."

Ok, let's just look at this passage; It is all self-referential, with each part referring to another. The national ratification? You only have a badly presented plan on a poorly designed web sight, you really think this will reach the point of national ratification? The 'representatives' can not agree on ANYTHING currently (except more power to the 1%) why would they agree on this? So giving the benefit of doubt, once this is done, then the "Union Reserve Bank" kicks in from the "newly created state banks", and the "state appointed bank officials" will sit on the "Union Board of Governors" to form the "Open Market Committee",. I see,. it is so democratic and participatory. Only problem is none of this exists or has a chance of coming into existence,. since the-powers-that-be already control the actual institutions that these fictitious ones would hypothetically replace,. and so what if they do? You are still presenting a system of "Representative" governing. That is, I vote for a single person along with thousands of other individuals, and this person is magically, some how, to know what I want? And what I want is to, some how, also be in accord with the thousands of others so our representative can implement it??

You are presenting a convoluted reform to the current representational system! This system does not work and is not a democracy.

How about we all represent ourselves, and debate the issues more directly? Why do you want to have 'representatives" at all, since these are the units of the system that get corrupted!

Here is just one example of you refusing to summarize or explain your convoluted model with the same criticism you leveled at me (reading skills/comprehension);
"A stand has already been taken but your lack of reading comprehension prevents you from observing it. Will you finally learn to read or will you continue chasing your tail with questions answered long before they were ever asked? Yes? No?"

You don't think it is perhaps your writing skills and or idea that are the problem?

Jct: How can anyone complain when the Argentine Solution provided full employment for all, yet no one else has bothered to go from broke in 2001 to all foreign debt paid off in 2006! Youtube for Argentine Solution is Occupy Wall St. Silver Bullet.

I mean the 'Right' and the 'more Right' (Ds and Rs) having a disagreement of just HOW they are going to keep paying the usury is a pointless debate. The issue is WHY do we pay the 1% banksters at all? Why not just say no to the banksters interest and stop borrowing from them at all? How about a monetary system where money is based on VALUE and not DEBT? How about linking costs to the effects of the actions,. you know sht like that.

The clear path to ending the corporate-state is to stop working FOR it. Remove yourself from the systems that oppress you and your children and then their children. Do not give support to institutions that no longer (if they ever did) work for you and your community. Build alternatives; create new systems of commons, sharing, and working together. Competition only works when there is limited supply, the limitations are illusion, lies,. made up to keep us marching around the chairs, waiting for the music to stop, scrambling over each-other to not be that last one,.. to not get a seat.

There is ABUNDANCE on this planet and in this universe, more than enough for ALL LIFE to flourish. We need only stop supporting the 1% that created the imbalance, and now perpetuates fear, and the lies of scarcity, and the ever threatening "other".

We are One People, One World, One!

Search; permaculture, slowmoney, relocalize, degrowth, etc.

The revolution begins when you make the changes, in your own life, that shift your energy from supporting the old ways, the old systems, the corrupted corporate hegemony, and embrace the life affirming, positive growth, of interconnected communities, living simply and within our means. Not taking from, abroad, from distant farmers, from future generations, as the corporatism of the past lead us to do. The currently dominate system is a dead-end,. and will inevitably fail, badly.

We lead by example, we just stop sporting the corporate bankster 1% rule, and we begin building new democratic, peaceful, egalitarian communities, working together in concert, to rebuild this struggling world, in the way that is most beneficial to all life. This IS a possible path, it only requires that you choose it.

Start growing food, and sharing it with your extended family and community. Find ways to work for yourself, (no bosses) and your community (voluntary cooperation), that cut out the taxes that are used to prop up the system that is stealing from our mothers,. and destroying our planet,. spreading war and hatred,. it is a system that has had it's time,. it's time is done. If you want it to end.

They push fear,. fear that the big-box stores will stop supplying us cheap crap from china,. is that so awful? Once we realize that we can work together, in even small pockets, and provide for our ACTUAL needs, in ways that are life affirming, and community strengthening,. at that point the 1%'s greed/debt and perpetual interest system will finally die.

Just don't forget to make the change real in your own life, as you do have control over that, more directly than convincing others to bend to your will,. however better it is than what they are doing now.

I Highly recommend joining, or stating, a food co-op! We (my housemates and I) started one in Montreal, when I lived there,. you will meet many like-minded people! From there, we started having potlucks and parties where we started organizing protests around community issues,. we then set up a community center, where we had punk-rock shows to pay the rent,. and ran a community kitchen (food not bombs), clothes recycling center, library, meeting space, etc,. we where about to setup a tools/workspace co-op (would be a hacker-space today) around the time I moved out of that fine city. Anyway, things can really snowball when we start making changes in our own lives!!